In November 2022, Caritas Bangladesh invited Development and Peace and other Caritas Internationalis members to an international partners’ meeting to help review its emergency response program for Rohingya refugees. Delegates visited the camps in Cox’s Bazar that house the world’s single largest refugee population. This year’s Advent stories were gathered in and around those refugee camps.

On Thursday, December 1, 2022, the English-speaking Catholic community of Montreal gathered at St. Monica parish in NDG. This was the first time the community had met in-person since 2019. It was a night for thanksgiving, acknowledging that God is at work in our community amid the current challenges in the Church and world, and to recognize the creative achievements of the community despite all we have been through.

This year, we have been blessed to have had a delegation of Indigenous people visit Pope Francis in Rome in order to receive his apology on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church, and again to welcome the Holy Father to this land to hear his words of sorrow as he embarked on his, self described, “Pilgrimage of Penance”. Let us take this opportunity to build on the reflections offered by Pope Francis.